


Don’t go where I can’t follow

by holograms



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Anxiety, Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fix-It, Jaime is a romantic at heart, Outdoor Sex, Road Trip, past dub-con, past emotional abuse, past sibling incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-09
Updated: 2019-05-09
Packaged: 2020-02-28 09:52:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18754024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/holograms/pseuds/holograms
Summary: Jaime leaves; Brienne follows.aka: road trip through Westeros 2.0





	Don’t go where I can’t follow

**Author's Note:**

> HEY I haven’t written for this fandom/ship in five years but 8x04 broke me and this is what happened. I intended it to be something short and mostly smut, but it turned out to an angst fest.
> 
> Mind the tags. Also there are mentions of vomiting and menstruation if that’s something that bothers you (?). This fic is not kind to Cersei, but most of it is direct from the books/show so...........yeah.
> 
> Thank you to bluecarrot for reading this over, even though you don’t know anything about this show or dragons.

Jaime isn’t a good man. How could he, when he leaves Brienne crying for him, outside in the middle of winter in the frigid North?

Tyrion said he was happy, and Jaime believes his little brother because he’s smarter than him. There are only a few times Jaime knows he has been truly happy — when his mother told him he’d have a little bother or sister, when Ser Arthur wrapped the Kingsguard cloak around his shoulders, when he was allowed to hold his children, when Brienne kneeled before him and he tapped his sword on her shoulders and made her a knight of the seven kingdoms and

she smiled at him.

Gods. He _was_ happy, with her, and he left her—

—he hopes he’s doing the right thing.

He sets into the long journey to the capital,having lots to think of. He wonders if he is doing the right thing and he questions how Brienne can think he’s a _good_ man, and he goes over every way he is a _terrible_ man, utter shit, and he thinks about how even if his plan does work, Brienne might hate him so much that she’ll never want to see him again, let alone lay next to him—

He hears a fast galloping behind him.

Panic flinches within him. For a moment he thinks it’s one of the undead on their half rotted horses, but they are no more — or maybe it’s Bronn, come to murder him on his dear sister’s order anyway, or someone from his own fucking army, or that hairy wildling come to kill him for making _her_ cry—

Before he can draw his sword and turn around, the person rushes past him and grabs him by his cape and pulls him right off his horse and he falls face forward onto the ground. Snow gets up his nose. It freezes his brain. He hates the fucking North.

Hopefully his death will be quick. He regrets he won’t be able to finish what he set out to do. He should have told Brienne.He should have written her a letter telling her his plans and that he promises he would come back to her if he could, but she deserves someone better than him, but he can’t even write because he wrote with his right hand and _that’s_ gone and his left-hand penmanship equates to a child’s and takes twice as long to do and the stupid fake gold hand he wears on his right is mostly useless but it doesn’t matter because he could never write well anyway—

He looks up to see who overpowered him. Tall, strong, angry.

Brienne.

Okay, he deserved that. He deserves for her to stomp on his face and he deserves that sad, disappointed look she’s giving him.

He isn’t a good man.

“You don’t get to do that,” she says. Her words float out of her mouth, her breath white and curling in the cold air. “You might fool everyone else, but I know _you_ , Jaime Lannister.”

She’s out of breath. Fully dressed, armor and all. How long did she cry before she grew angry? How quickly did she have to ride to catch up?

She dismounts her horse in a fluid motion and steps closer to him. He pushes the thought out of his mind that she’s incredibly sexy when she does things like that. He starts to speak but she kicks snow in his face.

 _Oh_ , she’s furious. Her mouth is a tangled mess of a snarl and trying-not-to-cry at the same time and her face is pink and her freckles stand out as blotches on her skin and

she’s so beautiful. Why doesn’t anyone else see it?

He wants to tell her that but he thinks she might cut his head — or possibly his dick — off if he did.

“Why did you follow me?” he asks instead. He prays she doesn’t say for love. She _can’t_ love him; the whole plan falls apart otherwise.

“To argue.” She kicks more snow at him. “Get up so we can settle this like — like knights.”

She draws her sword — trusty _Oathkeeper_ — and holds it at the ready. He thinks about how he gave her that sword, and that how she never lets it leave her side and how he told her _it’s_ _yours_ , _it’s_ _always_ _yours_.

“Well?” she asks.

He raises his brows. Well, alright then.

He gets up — and his side hurts, the fall really knocked the air out of him — and he takes out his sword and holds it out in front of him.

She won’t kill him because he fucked her and left.

Probably won’t.

She swings first. It’s sloppy and he blocks it easily and it hardly has any force behind it and okay, so it’s like that — sparring.

Almost like flirting.

(Which he’s apparently terrible at, as she told him later, after their first time. _Is_ _it_ _hot_ _in_ _here? I must take off my clothes!_  she said, mocking him, and they both laughed because well, it was dumb, _he’s_ dumb, but he was so nervous, as nervous as her—)

“Why did you try to make me hate you?” she asks.

He counters her next blow and gives one in return.

“Because you should,” he says. She lunges for him and grimaces — he told her that tell of hers and she all but got rid of it but she wants him to see it coming — and he clashes his sword against hers. “I took your virginity and left you in dreadful Winterfell.”

“You didn’t _take_ anything.” She brings her aim down overhead and it’s hard to keep it at bay with only one hand. “It was my choice.”

His arm hurts already. His right hand — where he should have a right hand — feels like it clenches, like it does sometimes, like a phantom of what once was there.

“And now you’ve done terrible things.” Jaime bites his lip. Considers her in front of him. “You fucked the Kingslayer. You left your liege lady to chase down the only cock you’ve known. Did you tell her? That once you had a taste you couldn’t let it go? Did you tell her why you’re an _oathbreaker_ —?”

Brienne yells, hits with more strength than before — good, he’s made her mad. With this he is familiar. 

Their swords slide against each other, making an awful scraping sound, like their twin swords forged from the same steel shouldn’t fight each other. They edge closer. Jaime has to brace his arm with his right or else she’d knock him over.

“I’ve seen bigger cocks than yours,” Brienne says.  Her voice is strained. She's struggling too. “I saw quite a few when I was in Renly's camp. You men like to let it hang out.”

“Ah, I knew it, you like cock as much as Renly did, you cock-starved wench—“

She pushes him away and he immediately feels bad. He hasn’t called her that, _wench_ , in years and he hasn’t been cruel like this since he came North.

That’s probably why she can’t hate him. He was a terrible person when she met him and that’s what she expects from him.

She huffs, regroups and holds Oathkeeper up again.

Jaime hits but she blocks it without even moving her feet.

“Lazy,” she says, sounding bored. “A child could have seen that one coming.”

“You’re insufferable, you know that?” Jaime feels sweat beading on his forehead despite the chill. “Maybe that’s why I left. You nagging at me.”

“Doubtful.” Hit, counter. “You didn’t leave me alone since you came to Winterfell. You followed me around like a lost puppy.”

“I had nothing better to do.”

“Is that also why you crawled into my bed every night for weeks, asking me to touch you?”

“Because it was warm, because you’re so...so tall. And have big hands.”

Brienne laughs. “Oh, please. That’s weak, from you. Call me ugly or something.”

Jaime frowns. “I won’t speak an untruth.”  She isn't ugly; he's grown to see her sharp jaw as stunning and her crooked bottom teeth as endearing and her size as breath-taking and tight, muscular body as attractive.

Her barrage of attacks don’t stop. They’re still harmless, but they are unrelenting. Does she intend to fight him until exhaustion, and then sling him over her back like a sack of flour and carry him back—

—home.

Huh.

Winterfell isn’t their home, neither of theirs, not the fortress of Casterly or her island of Tarth, but it felt like home, for a while—

“Someone might catch us,” he says. “Like before.” Before, when he was fighting her for his freedom and it was the last fight he had with two good hands—

She makes an interested sound. “That would be fun.”

“Oh, yes. Us getting captured by a corrupt group of sell-swords was great, as well as you nearly getting gang raped and me getting maimed and me vomiting on you more than once and oh! Remember, there was also a bear. Great fun.” He smiles. “But I did see you naked, so all in all—“

He was distracted, talking too much. She disarms him. His sword flings several feet away into the snow.

He looks from his weapon, to her.

She tosses hers to the ground too and for a moment he thinks she’s going to hug him and he holds his arms out but no, she’s shoving him to the ground, straddling his hips and pushing down on his shoulders so hard he sinks into the snow up to his ears.

“What the fuck, Brienne?”

“You aren’t hateful,” she says. “I didn’t think of it at first because you were such an asshole, but I soon realized why you said those things.”

“I said them because they’re true!“

He struggles but she holds him down. He knows she can; she’s held him down by his shoulders as he bucked his hips up and squirmed for more but she rode him agonizingly slow, taking her time.

“So what if they are true?” She leans in, and she is very close to him. He feels her warmth. “They aren’t _you_. You only said them to drive me away.”

“Didn’t work,” he mutters. Stubborn woman — but it isn’t her fault. She’s been treated horribly by men all her life, so she doesn’t know any differently.

“I realized,” she says, “you weren’t going back to be _with_ her. If you wanted to, you would have left when she needed the help. And now she has the advantage and you know what you have to do. So you said those things, thinking I’d hate you. So I wouldn’t follow.”

She blinks. He doesn’t know if those are snowflakes or tears on her cheeks.

“You wouldn’t say those things if you were hateful.” Her voice cracks. “You wouldn’t care.”

Something catches in his throat. “You’re biased.”

“Maybe I am.” She holds his face between her hands, like she did when she begged him to _stay_ with her. “But I’m not wrong.”

How is it that she — the most honorable person he’s ever known — knows him so fully, when they aren’t of the same—

“I’m sorry.” His voice sounds very small. “I was going to come back. After.”

Brienne is crying, now. “You were planning to die with your sister.”

“I have to,” he says. “Nobody else can — not armies or dragons. I can get her to trust me and...well. If I die trying, it is my duty.”

“I won’t let you die, Jaime.”

“She always said we would die together.” His eyes sting. “That’s how it will be.”

“Jaime—“ she starts, and then she sobs.

It isn’t pretty.

He runs his hand up her back, over her armor. He tangles his fingers in her hair. “I am very sorry you ever met me.”

She cries, gasping, heaving sobs and oh, this is worse, worse than losing his hand, worse than Cersei’s disapproval, seeing her hurt like this.

She kisses him. Her lips tremble against his and her tears and runny nose is wet on his face.

“Please,” she says, “you don’t deserve that. You deserve to go down fighting, not to surrender without other options. You say you’re a hateful man but I know you aren’t. You said you did those horrible things but you didn’t, she _made_ you do them — and you didn’t kill everyone in Riverrun because I asked you not to and you didn’t do that because you wanted to do something nice for me, you did it because you knew it was _right_. You’re a good man, Jaime, please don’t leave me behind, we’ve came too far and I promise I won’t ask you to stop but don’t do it alone, don’t shoulder this burden alone, I _love_ you—“

And he does cry, then. He doesn’t know what does it — the confession of love or the promise that he won’t be alone or the fact that some things haven’t been his choice — but he wraps his arms around her and cries like an idiot into her neck, says, _I love you too_ , and it’s still so strange in his mouth that it makes his head spin. They lie like that for a while, holding each other and crying in the snow.

 

-

 

“I’m sorry.” Jaime stands, watching her fix their saddles.

“For what?” She looks over her shoulder. “For leaving me?”

He winces. “Well. Yes, I’ll apologize for that again—,” he says, and she gives him a _look_ and he adds, “many, many times, but I meant. Uh. I’m sorry for crying.”

He laughs, in an attempt to off-put how awkward he feels. He knows it’s unmanly. The last time his father allowed him to cry like that was when his mother died.

She turns around. He wonders if she’s going to start fighting him again.

“There’s no need to apologize for that,” she says. He wishes she wouldn’t sound so sad. It makes him sad. Sadder.

He shrugs. “Then I’m not sorry.”

And ah, there. She smiles at him.

Good.

They set off, going vaguely south, staying off the main road. Brienne bickers at him, telling him he was daft to leave without any armor, and he tells her that he didn’t have any since he came to the North with only what was only his back and he had to borrow some for the Great War, and she rolls her eyes and jerks her thumb to the pack on her horse to show that she borrowed some Stark armor for him.

“How romantic,” he says. She scoffs and rides ahead of him.

They travel only a short distance. There’s a cave that has no wolves hiding inside and Brienne only has to duck her head a little when standing. She makes a fire while he sets up for them to sleep. He puts their bedrolls side by side. He gives her a questioning look. She answers with a nod and goes back to prodding at the fire.

It will be daylight soon. It’ll be nice to sleep with the sun giving them warmth, and have her body against his. He’s grown used to waking up with someone next to him.

He doesn’t like things growing on him, but here they are.

They fuck there, on their blankets. She takes off his golden hand for him while she she attacks him with kisses, and he doesn’t object — she kissed away the apprehension on his face when she said, _let_ _me_ , the first time they laid together. They keep their shirts on because it’s fucking freezing and the fire is a good distraction from shivering until they are hot and sweaty with sex. She’s on top — it’s easier this way, he’s tired and doesn’t want to hold himself up with his sad excuse of an right arm, and his side is still kind of sore from when she dragged him down from his horse — she apologizes, and kisses each one of his ribs — and besides, he likes it, he likes watching her eyes flutter shut when they move together in the right way.

He slides his good hand up her shirt and cups one of her small breasts in his palm. It fits there perfectly.

She gasps. “Cold!”

“Sorry,” he mumbles. But he doesn’t let go — he rubs his thumb over her nipple. It’s pert, from cold and arousal both.

“You don’t think you’re sorry.”

Her eyes are closed and gods, he wants to see them — so blue and clear and honest—

“Look at me.”

She does. He feels like crying again.

“Jaime...”

He flips her onto her back with them still joined, and she wraps her legs around his hips — he fucking loves her legs, how could he have ever insulted her about them, they’re strong enough to crush a melon between her thighs and so long that he loses himself in them. He thrusts in hard and she makes a wonderful noise that’s similar to when she fights but not the same at all, and she arches her back and she drags her fingers through his hair and she pulls him close and he kisses her needy and she’s like fresh air. She tastes like spring.

 

-

 

They manage to fit under the same blanket. They put the spare on top for extra warmth. It smells like sex. He wonders what Cersei would say if he came to her smelling like another woman.

Nothing good. His sister isn’t a good person. That’s why he didn’t want Brienne involved in this...

“Stop thinking. Too loud.”

Jaime shifts to look at Brienne resting on his chest. Her hair has fallen across her forehead and he itches to move it but she’s lying on his left arm and, well.

“Sorry.” He kisses her forehead. She makes a humming noise that he takes for accepting his apology. She snuggles closer, wrapping her arm around his middle and hooking her leg over his.

“Trying to keep me from leaving again?” he asks. 

“Maybe,” she mumbles against his skin and—

Jaime realizes he would start a war to keep them together. He’s trying to end one so he can be free—he can’t remember when he had an option, there never _was_ an option—

“I said no thinking,” Brienne whispers, half asleep.

He takes a deep breath. Steadies himself. He’s safe. He’s with her.

“As you say, Ser,” he says and he feels her smile against his neck.

 

-

 

He fixes them breakfast. It’s the easiest task he can do one-handed and still be fucking useful.

Meanwhile: Brienne made a snare and caught them a rabbit for later, sharpened both of their daggers, and packed everything away.

“Here.” Jaime gives her over-dried fish and some kind of fruit that he’s only ever seen in the North. “Your feast.”

“Thanks,” she says, and kisses him chastely on the temple.

It’s nice and makes Jaime’s heart flutter like he’s a teenager and not a grown man but what he hates is that she pauses, like she doesn’t know if she’s allowed to do that, if there’s a boundary for causal intimacy.

He smiles at her. He hopes that tells her it’s fine. He wants it to be fine.

She goes to her food.

He picks at his own. He’s glad the fish is crisp enough it breaks apart with one hand and he doesn’t have to ask her to cut his food for him.

“What reason did you tell Lady Sansa for leaving?” he asks.

“The truth,” Brienne says, but Jaime tilts his head at her and she continues. “Not _that_. She’s surmised that much. But I told her that you were going to do something stupid and give your life to stop Cersei, and I couldn’t let you go alone.”

“And she was alright with it?”

“Yes. She thought it was honorable of you.”

Jaime groans. She laughs.

“Is it so horrible for someone to think kindly of you?”

“Yes,” he says, distraught. “Because then they expect more—”

“Oh, hush.”

 

-

 

Things are too good, and that cross expression invades Brienne’s face again and Jaime knows there’s _something_ wrong.

“Lord Bran told me she’s lying,” she says. “Cersei isn’t with child.”

Jaime feels as though he’s struck down. He’d ask how Bran Stark could know this, but then remembers his vacant all-knowing stare and that he really isn't _Bran_ anymore.

And what does it say when he isn’t surprised at all?

”I’m sorry,” Brienne says, quiet. She touches his shoulder. “I know that no matter what you are to each other, you cared for your children.”

Jaime shrugs, but his shoulders lock up, tense.

”It’s fine. I’m fine.”

At least, it makes what he has to do easier.

-

 

They’re traveling fast, trying to keep up with warships and dragons. Jaime wonders if there will be anything left of the city by the time they get there.

“You can still go back,” Jaime says, soft, in a different cave, somewhere else, the walls providing shelter from the blizzard outside. “I would understand.”

“But where else could I find a snarky, one-handed knight?” Brienne draws circles in the dusting of hair above his pelvis. “They are rare to come by.”

He’s trying to be serious. “Bri,” he says, and she makes a bashful face at the nickname. “This is my mess to settle. I’m a mess.”

“You’re _my_ mess.”

“I don’t want you getting hurt.”

“I won’t.”

Jaime wishes he could ensure that. “You don’t know my sister. Cersei would kill you without having a reason, and with you and me...she would have a reason.”

Brienne is quiet. Too quiet. She always goes silent when he talks about him and Cersei. Like she’s afraid how much to ask, or maybe she’s disgusted that he used to fuck his sister.

His stomach turns.

“I’m sorry for talking about her,” he says, and she pushes up to look at him directly and he thinks he’s done something else wrong.

“You can talk about anything you want, Jaime,” Brienne says, sounding offended. Her mouth is in that terrible pained shape again. “It’s just that...I thought you didn’t like talking about her. It hurts you.”

He still feels sick, and now Brienne is starting to look _worried_ at him.

He puts his hand to the back of her head and guides her back to lie on his chest.

“How did you know why I was going back,” he asks, because they both _know_ , without it being said. “That I wasn’t going back to— to be with her.”

“Because you moved on,” she says. “You came to the North even when she threatened to kill you if you did. You did what you wanted to do.”

What he wanted. He has always made what Cersei wanted his priority, because it was the best for both of them (she said). He joined the Kingsguard because so he could be kept close to her (she said), and not married and locked away at their family home at Casterly (she said), and she told him who to manipulate for them and she told him what they should do— _just try, Jaime—_

“I’m sick, Brienne.” Jaime wonders if she can hear his heart rapid in his chest. “I’m afraid that once I’m there I will fall back with her.”

Brienne makes an inaudible noise and he thinks maybe she’s upset but she just snuggles closer to him.

“Relationships are complicated,” she says. “Sometimes, we go back to the people who hurt us because they make us feel like we can’t live without them.”

He doesn’t like that Brienne knows that kind of hurt. He doesn’t like that he caused some of it.

“I should have been nicer to you,” he says. “I am lucky you didn’t give up on me after we parted the first time.”

“Oh, Jaime.” Her sadness reverberates through him. “I didn’t mean _us_. I meant you and your sister.”

His vision blurs and if he weren’t lying down he thinks he’d fall over. He never thought of it like that, but it is — oh gods, when does what he wanted end and her wants begin, why—

“Why don’t you hate me?” he asks.

“Why should I?”

Why wouldn’t she? “Because I was cruel to you. Because I let you trust me. Because I’m selfish and vain. Because until recently, I fucked my sister since I was able. Because I charmed you into bedding me and you’re going to regret it, if not now, eventually—“

“Oh, do shut up,” Brienne snaps and her bluntness surprises him, somewhat. “I don’t regret anything. I chose to lay with you for my first time, because I know it’s hard to comprehend, but I like you. I don’t regret you.”

He kisses her, because he doesn’t know what to say. He keeps kissing her and she returns it, biting, hungry.

He licks down her front, between the valley of her breasts and the freckles on her stomach and her navel and lower still, rubs his nose in her hair covering her mound and then licks her where she’s warm and wet.

He had waited several nights before he introduced her to that, when she didn’t blush with his fingers curled in her. He had said, “tell me to stop if you want,” and he dipped down and she only could ask, “stop what—“ before she gasped and swore with his mouth on her.

“Jaime.” She reaches for his shoulder, squeezes, like he’s her lifeline. “ _Please_.”

He’s going down on Brienne of Tarth in the middle of the woods and she’s begging for more. Life is great, all things considered.

She’s loud when she fights — he knew she was alive during the battle of Winterfell because heard her grunts and screams as she hacked at bodies — and she’s loud during sex, too, making all sorts of noises that make him throb.

“I love you,” she says — shouts, really. He’s thankful his mouth is busy because he does — yes — but saying it is another.

 

-

 

“I don’t get it,” he says. “How can you love me?”

“Why you do love me?” Brienne counters, and he wants to press her to answer him first but he knows that she needs to be told as much as him—

“Because,” Jaime begins, “because you’re strong as hell, body and mind. Because I have to stand on my toes to kiss you. Because of your kindness. Because you don’t treat me like a cripple. Because your smile makes me smile. Because you never gave up on me. Because you believed I could be a good person.”

Brienne sniffles. “I love you because you’re you.”

He isn’t sure what that means.

 

-

 

He hadn’t really expected it, for some reason. He knows Brienne is a woman and it happens to all of them, but it surprises him when he sees. She stretches her arms up and the hem of her jacket raises and—

“You’re bleeding,” Jaime says, low. He tries to minimize the embarrassment but Brienne gasps and pats her front like she could have been injured somehow and Jaime says, “no, I mean...” and he gestures to her back.

She turns to look at her backside. “Oh, fuck it.”

They pause for her to change trousers and do whatever she needs to do, and then she sits and rubs at her other pair of trousers with melted snow. Jaime sits across from her, pensive.

“I thought with as many battles you’ve seen, you wouldn’t be frightened by the sight of blood,” she says, teasing.

“It’s not that.” He is glad for her monthly bleed. He had worried. They’ve been careful, him pulling out and releasing on the ground, blanket, her stomach — but sometimes she asks for him to come inside her and, well. There isn’t much preventing it after such a request.

It would have been terrible, _if_ , he reassures himself. Cersei would have known because she knows everything, and she would have done something terrible like they did to the poor pregnant wife of that Stark boy, stabbing her in the belly until she died.

He looks over to Brienne. She seems unconcerned.

His brave warrior.

One day, perhaps.

And then he realizes — he’s thinking he will survive after this.

 

-

 

The temperature turns warmer which means they’re further into the South which means they are closer to the end.

There has been no trouble using side roads and short cuts through forests but the population is more dense in the South and even the lesser roads are more travelled.

It was only a matter of time before they’re recognized. A farmer recognizes Jaime immediately — his dashing good looks give him away, of course — and then with a glance at Brienne the farmer says, “oy, the Queen has a bounty on your head too—“

Jaime kills him where he stands.

“He could have told us more!” Brienne says. “We know nothing of how the war is going.”

“Not worth it.” Jaime cleans his sword off on the farmer’s coat. “All we need to know is what he told us — Cersei knows about us.”

“You’re being paranoid,” she says, and so what if he is? At least she wouldn’t end up dead because of him as collateral damage.

He won't let Cersei ruin anything else.

 

-

 

Jaime tries to convince Brienne that they should cut through heavy woods and to go by night if they have to travel open fields and roads. She protests. He reminds her that the last time they travelled across Westeros together, going her way got them captured.

“That was only because you couldn’t keep your bloody mouth shut.”

“Semantics,” Jaime says, but Brienne relents and goes in the direction he suggests.

 

-

 

Dreams haunt him, and Brienne too — one often wakes the other in the throes of a nightmare. Sometimes it’s the same dream, of the Great War with the undead and they’re trapped with that stone wall to their backs as bodies pile in front of them and they keep swinging their swords until they stop being the living and start fighting with the dead.

Sometimes Jaime dreams that Brienne is one of them. Sometimes he kills her. Sometimes he does not.

Other times —

he dreams of losing his hand and he wakes up in agony of pain that isn’t really there,

he dreams that the Mad King burned down the city anyway, and everyone died,

he dreams that he isn’t good enough,

he dreams of _her_ , whispering things in his ear and he does terrible things and she tells him it’s for love and he believes it.

This time — the nightmare features both of the blonde women who have a hold on him. Cersei’s hair looks like the glow of fire and Brienne’s is like sunshine. They’re in the throne room, that awful place with its vaulted ceilings that feel like they’re closing in, and Cersei is telling Brienne, _he never loved you,_ and Jaime wants to say she's wrong but he can’t speak—

—and then Cersei turns into a dragon and burns her alive.

He wakes up sweating, and calling out for Brienne.

“I’m here.” She runs her hand over his forehead and makes soft noises. “It’s okay. You’re safe.”

He focuses on her gaze. Beautiful blue eyes. They remind him of calm water.

“I know,” Jaime says. “My lady knight will protect me.”

Brienne lets out a something that sounds like half a laugh and half a sob, and she calls him a _dumbass_ and she kisses him.

 

-

 

“It won’t always be like this,” Jaime says one day. They’ve been riding for a few hours and they’ve stopped to take a break.

“I hope not,” Brienne says. “Hopefully soon we will sleep inside.”

Jaime shakes his head.

“I’m older than you,” he says. “You’ll grow tired of me. My good years are gone.”

Used up.

“Jaime. I’ve known you for many years now, and you are much more tolerable than you used to be. If I was tired of you, I would have said my farewells a long time ago. Probably around the time we were captured together and you had not one nice thing to say about me.”

Jaime frowns. He knows he should thank her for all the shit he’s put her through. He knows he should worship the ground she walks on. He would thank the gods old and new if he still knew how to pray.

“You’ll find someone else,” he says.

She laughs. “You know I’ve had three men terminate their engagements to me. And I don’t want someone else. I want you.”

“You don’t deserve me—“

“Don’t start that bullshit again,” she says.

“I’m serious, Brienne.” Why does he keep talking, why won’t he shut up? Usually someone has told him to shut up by now—

“This — it won’t last. I’ve already broken your heart once. I’ll do it again. It isn't always forever. I know you’re new to this type of thing, but that’s how it is. It’s normal.”

“How do you know anything about _normal_ relationships? The only other relationship you’ve had was with your twin sister who you’ve been fucking ever since your cock could get stiff—“

She stops herself. She bites her lip. It bleeds.

He’s mad. He should be, right? She’s just like every one else, she thinks he’s vile. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about, or what it was like—

She wordlessly gets up and starts fixing things so they can continue on. She secures his saddle for him because he knows it drives her crazy watching him struggle one handed. That makes him kind of mad, too.

They don’t talk the rest of the day. At nightfall they find a clearing that’s fine enough and they ready camp, going through the motions. She’s obviously ashamed of speaking too far and he thinks she’s mad at him and he’s — he doesn’t know how he feels. They sleep next to each other because it’s cold but they don’t talk and don’t touch.

The last thought Jaime has before he sleeps is: she’s still here.

He wakes with a start. Not much time has passed, as the fire is still strong. He looks to his side. He’s alone and he immediately thinks the worst — that she left him finally and fuck, he didn’t really want her to go, but then he notices her horse and her stuff are still there so maybe she just went to relieve herself but then he notices Oathkeeper is missing and he has another wave of panic, he remembers how she once told him that when she travels alone she sleeps in her armor because of men—

He hears a yell. Hers.

He grabs his sword and runs towards her. The moon gives a lot of light this evening but he can hardly see where he’s going, getting whacked in the face with branches and stumbling over roots, but he must get to her—

And she’s fine, of course.

She doesn’t notice he’s there — and he’ll scold her for that, later. She’s yelling and swinging Oathkeeper at a tree, chopping at it over and over again, leaving deep cuts in the trunk.

“Did the tree offend you?”

She spins around with her sword inches from his face but when she sees it’s him she drops it.

“I could have cut your neck,” she says.

“Don’t you know how worried I was when I woke up and you weren’t there and then I hear you shouting?”

She shrugs. “I figured you wouldn’t want me there after what I said.”

Jaime forgot he was mad with her. He doesn’t know why he was mad to begin with. It was the truth. The ugly, scarred truth.

“Let’s go back,” he says. On instinct he goes to hold out his right hand for her to take because his left holds his sword, but then he remembers.

But she willingly grabs the stump, where the wrist ends.

He feels sick and like crying at the same time.

They lie closer together when they return, facing each other. Jaime looks at her. Her freckles are darker, having spent so much time in the sun. He touches them, connecting them like constellations.

She winkles her nose. “What are you doing?”

“Remembering your beautiful face.” He doesn’t want to forget it. He wants it to be the last thing he sees before he dies. He likes to tell her she’s beautiful because she still frowns at him like she thinks he’s lying.

“How are you going to kill her? Your sister?”

It’s the first they’ve addressed it. They both know it was the only way. He has to — for them, for the realm.

“I don’t know,” Jaime admits. He hasn’t thought that far. “I’ll go back. Make her trust me. Then find a vulnerable moment.”

Brienne is silent, and then says, “I’ll do it.”

There is murder in her eyes. He recognizes it. It’s something Cersei puts in people. He doesn’t want that for Brienne.

“It’s for me to do. She’s my sister ex-lover.” He needs to do this. Kill half of himself so he can be whole.

“I can do it,” Brienne says. “I’m not afraid of her.“

“You should be.”

“I’m not.” She puts her hand to the side of his face, presses their foreheads together. “Let me help you, Jaime. I know it won’t be easy for you. I don’t want it to destroy you.”

She thinks too much of him.

He kisses her nose and pulls back so he can watch her face. He says, “didn’t you say Lady Sansa got to decide what to do to her tormenter? That she fed him to his dogs? That they tore him apart and she was happy?”

“That’s different. Sansa never loved him.”

Yes, it is different. It’s worse when it’s someone who you loved, and who was supposed to love you in return.

“Please,” Brienne says, sweetly. “I don’t want you to carry this, too. You won’t ever accept the admiration for being a hero. You killed the Mad King and you never told the truth of why, because people made their judgements and you thought you deserved to be hated.”

“Bri,” he says, wrecked, and he closes his eyes because he can’t look at her, not when she’s looking at him like that, like he’s a hero—

“I’m sorry,” he says.

“For what?”

“Leaving you.”

Brienne sighs. “It’s okay.”

“It isn’t. I was—I was scared.”

“Why?”

“I was scared that I loved you.”

This is one of the times Jaime knows he should shut up but he doesn’t, the words spill from him like an open wound—

“I thought I had been in love before,” he says. “With her. Cersei. But then I loved you and it was so different and it felt so good and I realized—that I didn’t know love could feel like that.”

“Like what?”

“Free,” Jaime says. “And with her I felt trapped. She’s always said it was just me and her. Even since we were children. I don’t know the beginning. Of when ...we started. I think—I think she had the idea. She was always more curious. I don’t remember it though. Why don’t I remember?”

“Jaime.”

“When I heard about the ambush and that our side was losing, I knew what I had to do. I couldn’t let her win.”

Brienne wraps his arm around his middle, holds him close. She listens.

“We were thirteen the first time I went into her. Hardly teenagers,” he says. “She bled on the sheets after. I was upset.” He’s rambling, jumping times. “She got mad at me. She said that I would make someone find us and they would know what we _did_ , and then they would take her away from me, and I didn’t want that did I? And I didn’t, because she was my sister and I loved her.”

Why won’t Brienne hate him? He hates himself—

“I joined the Kingsguard for her. She said it was good so I would be close to her, and I could stay loyal to her because I would never marry. I wanted to be Lord of Casterly but I joined, for her. I didn’t mind, until the Mad King started burning innocent people alive and I had to stand there and watch and protect him. I still dream about flesh melting off bones. I told Cersei I didn’t want to do it anymore and she slapped me and asked if I didn’t love her anymore, but she didn’t understand — I was only seven and ten, just a boy. And then I murdered the King and became hated as much as I hate myself—“

“ _Jaime_.” Brienne cries for him. He hates that he keeps making her cry.

“She always said if she’d been a man she would have been me,” Jaime says. “So I let her live my life as was best for her wants, and now I’m afraid I won’t have anything left when she’s gone—“

But Brienne tells him he’s _good_ and she lists all the good things about him and she’s _good_ so if she says it

it must be true.

 

-

 

They’ll be at the city tomorrow. Jaime asks for them to wait, just in case this is their last night.

Brienne promises it won’t be. Jaime knows good things don’t last.

They have sex — make love, he supposes. That’s something new, too. His hand shakes when he touches her. She takes it in hers and kisses his knuckles, then she takes his other arm and kisses where his hand would be. He loves her for that. She makes breathy sounds as he thrusts in her and whimpers his name. She digs her fingers into the flesh of his backside, urging him on, deeper. He kisses and bites her chest, neck, anything he can taste. Licks at the scars on her neck from where the bear clawed her. He sucks a bruise high on her neck that anyone could see and know what it is. She gives him one too. When he’s close, she pets his hair and tells him that she loves him and he’s a good man and he muffles his cry into her shoulder as he comes.

 

-

 

“I couldn’t convince you not to go, could I?” she asks, after. “We could just keep going south and get in a boat and go to my home. I know how to sail. It would be just us. Nobody would be able to find us on Tarth. I know places to hide.”

Jaime thinks of water as blue as her eyes. He wants to stay on an island surrounded by it and never leave.

“When the war is over,” he says. “You wouldn’t respect me if I had us run away from a fight.”

“I would, for you.”

Jaime thinks of that, of someone doing something for him.

A dragon flies overhead towards the city.

They have to go.

“She’ll hurt you,” Jaime says. “She doesn’t like others messing with her things.”

“I’ll manage.”

Of course she will.

 

-

 

The city is starting to burn. The dragon queen is being mindful of what she destroys. Only enough to cause chaos.

But fire spreads.

They get to where they need to without being stopped. Brienne doesn’t leave his side. Maybe this will be easier than he thought—

No. He won’t allow the optimism to creep in.

They are attacked by the Greyjoys as they approach the throne room. Jaime and Brienne fight back to back, two working as one. She covers him when his right is open. He leaves his back undefended when two go for her at the same time.

The doors to the throne room are open. He smells fire. He feels like he’s seventeen.

“Go!” Brienne shouts and he knows this is the moment.

He doesn’t want to leave her.

He goes where he must. Cersei is sitting on the throne. She’s thin. He counts back the moons since he's seen her last. The Stark boy is a Seer after all.

He forgets how to breathe.

And then he’s knocked on the ground, shoved face down. His sword skids across the floor. His forehead slams on the tile. He’s dizzy. Someone stomps on him. He feels ribs crack, things hurt inside. Something sharp slips inside his armor and he hurts there, too. He glances up to Cersei. She’s smiling.

He'll crawl to her if he has to, but he can’t move. Someone is on top of him. He cranes his neck to see Euron Greyjoy in his vision. Greyjoy kneels on Jaime’s back and Jaime’s right arm is trapped underneath him and he can’t _move_ —

“I expected you’d give more of a fight,” Greyjoy says. He pins Jaime’s outstretched left hand on the ground. “Disappointing, really.”

Cersei gives a nod of approval. There’s the sound of metal being unsheathed and it flashes in front of Jaime, and then he knows, the crazy bastard isn’t going to kill him, he’s going to—

“And after I take your hand, I’m going to kill her in front of you,” Greyjoy says. “Your new half-giant bitch.“

Jaime hear Brienne shout. He smells embers. Cersei’s gaze feels like burning.

He prays for Brienne to survive, and him. He wants to live. He’s wonders if Brienne would still love him even if Greyjoy mutilates him and leaves him with no hands. He thinks she will.

He closes his eyes. Hears the swing of steel in the air and

steel meeting flesh and the smell of blood, so much blood.

He doesn’t feel pain. He didn’t the first time either, until after he looked.

He looks. His hand is on the floor, attached to his arm.

And then he notices Cersei screaming and getting up from throne and he’s being dragged up from the floor and his knees buckle and—

It’s Brienne. She’s holding him up. Steady. His eyes flicker to her sword. Oathkeeper drips blood.

On the ground next to them, Greyjoy’s head is not next to his body.

Brienne is a blessing.

Cersei lunges at him. Brienne steps in front of him, protective.

A true knight.

Cersei sneers. “You can’t hide, brother. This is the end.” She looks outside at the fire starting to consume them. “We’ll die together, like we’ve always said.”

He caused all of this. Her. He knew it was wrong, all her schemes and manipulations and he _let_ her—

It would be so easy to die.

But.

“I’m sorry,” Jaime says and he grabs Cersei by the neck and drags her to the ground, crushing her throat with his hand of flesh and his hand of gold and she looks so _so_ surprised. He feels his throat closing up too but he presses harder. He feels something crack under his fingers. She claws at him, but she grows weak.  He really is sorry, and while they might have come from the womb together with him holding her ankle, he won’t let her drag him down, too.

“It was you all along,” she says, and that fire goes out.

He stands. He looks to Brienne. She’s still there.

She smiles at him.

“It’s over.” Her voice is hoarse — from yelling, smoke, tears? “You ended it.”

“Yes,” he says, and damn it, he’s hurt, and the room gets dark and the last thing he sees is Brienne screaming and reaching out to catch him as he falls—

“I lo—“

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He does die. A part of him.

He comes to sometime later, lying on the cold floor of the throne room. He hates this damn room.

Maybe he’s in hell.

He hears low murmurs around him. He tries to move but he aches. He groans.

“Jaime?”

No, she would never be in any of the seven hells. He turns his head to look at Brienne.

She’s been crying. Her eyes are red and the path of her tears made streaks through the dirt and soot and blood on herface.

“Hey,” he says, weakly. “Did I miss something?”

She swears at him and pulls him into her arms. Their armor clanks together. He glances outside. It's storming outside. The fire is fading.

“For a moment, I thought I lost you,” she whispers into his shoulder.

“Don’t be silly.” He fainted. Embarrassing, but fine. “Only my dignity is lost.”

Someone clears their throat. They part, and Jaime sees they aren’t alone —Tyrion, Jon Snow, the young Stark girl, Ser Davos are in the room with them.

“The Dragon Queen is dead,” his brother announces. “As is the other queen...our sister.”

“Yes,” says Jaime. He killed her.

His sister.

“Technically,” Davos says, “you would be the next in line for Lannister’s claim for the throne.”

Brienne snickers. “Jaime, king?”

“Technically,” Tyrion repeats.

Jaime blinks. They must be joking. He looks at Tyrion, who shrugs, so tired he has nothing to say. Davos looks like he's constipated. Jon Snow looks like he’s pleading for him to take the job so he won’t have to. Arya Stark looks like she wants to cut his face off if he dares to try.

“Thanks, but no thanks. I am finished.” Done. No more kings or queens or fucking dragons. Jaime motions for Brienne to help him up. “I don’t want to step into this room again for a long time. Proclaim who you bloody well like,” he says, like all those years ago, after he killed the Mad King.

He slings his arm over Brienne’s shoulder and begins to hobble out of the room.

“Where are you going?” Tyrion shouts after him.

“Away,” Jaime says, and lower to Brienne he whispers, “don’t tell them.”

She smiles. And

he is  
free.

**Author's Note:**

> Like I said most of the Cersei stuff is lifted directly from source material. In the books Jaime is reluctant to join he kingsguard but Cersei seduces him and they have sex all night and in the morning “she’s changed his mind.” There are several mentioned of her slapping him. I definitely see Jaime as been emotionally abused; this is the hill I will die on.
> 
> I have a LOT OF FEELINGS about what the show is doing about these knights in love (love!!!) so....yeah. Hi here they are. There may be a sequel WHO KNOWS.
> 
> you can find me on tumblr @acanofpeaches


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